


Growing Old So Young

by ArtemisRae



Series: Alphabet Challenge [9]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Canon - Manga, F/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-03
Updated: 2009-05-03
Packaged: 2017-10-07 21:58:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/69653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtemisRae/pseuds/ArtemisRae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She looks for him in Ishbal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Growing Old So Young

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my alphabet drabbles challenge, where I've given a prompt for every letter of the alphabet. This prompt was "war". Spoilers for Ishbal.

* * *

_war_  
-noun  
1\. a state or period of armed hostility or active military operations

* * *

 

Deep in the Ishbal desert, Riza tries her best not to be annoyed with Hughes as he treats her like some old girlfriend of Roy's, a spurned one night stand whom Roy won't shoo away. Roy won't correct him, and Riza knows it's not her place to inform Hughes that there's a difference between being intimate and having sex, and while Roy was not Riza's first in the physical act she can honestly say that there's nobody in the world she's been more intimate with – and she's willing to guess the same of Roy.

The majority of her concern in him, she's not ashamed to admit, is interest in her investment. She wants to see that she made the right decision, sharing her father's secret with Roy. It had been a choice made by gut instinct at the time, fueled by a desire to be free of her father's secret and the burden of choosing someone worthy – and even a little bit by the way he was looking at her, so concerned and optimistic that it was enough to make her heart lurch towards what she'd long feared had been a little indulgence in teenage rebellion.

She'd never regretted it, not even a little bit; the tightness of the scar tissue was nothing compared to the weight of the tattoo on her back, but when the first stories had reached the ranks of the snipers about the alchemists and the power they'd been wielding through the districts of Ishbal she couldn't help the little pit that formed in her stomach. The thought of even him succumbing to the power of the state…

So she blows off Hughes and keeps an eye on Roy through her scope, and understands: she's not just protecting him, but her own best interests as well.

* * *


End file.
